Coalwood featured in newest issue of GOLDENSEAL magazine

World famous as the site of Homer Hickam, Jr.’s, book
“Rocket Boys” and the film “October Sky,”
the McDowell County community of Coalwood is featured in an
article, “Historic Coalwood,” in the summer issue of
GOLDENSEAL magazine.

The article, which was written by noted West Virginia coal
historian Stuart McGehee, is an insightful account of the rise and
fall of this historic coal company town. McGehee traces
Coalwood’s history from its founding in 1902 as a company
town for the Carter Coal & Coke Company, through its rise to
national recognition as a model mining community in the early
1930s, to its gradual decline due to mechanization and global
competition.

At its peak, Coalwood was home to some 2,000 southern West
Virginians and trailed only a handful of coal-producing centers in
the state of terms of productivity and employment. Coalwood changed
owners a number of times, McGehee writes, and was briefly operated
by the U.S. Navy in the turbulent years following World War
II.

Mining continued in Coalwood throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the
years chronicled in Hickham’s popular books “Rocket
Boys” and “The Coalwood Way” and in the upcoming
“Sky of Stone.” The Coalwood mines eventually closed
down in 1986.

The GOLDENSEAL article is illustrated with seven pages of rare
archival photographs of Coalwood, many of which have never before
been published.

Accompanying articles include a visit to “Coalwood
Today” with photographer Mark Crabtree, highlighted by an
exclusive commentary from Hickam. A third Coalwood-related article,
written by former GOLDENSEAL editor Ken Sullivan, offers insight
into Hickam’s writings. This issue of the magazine also
includes a profile of Wheeling railroad photographer J.J. Young and
a story about a 105-year-old Clarksburg glassmaker and his French
heritage.

GOLDENSEAL is West Virginia’s magazine of traditional life
and is a quarterly publication of the West Virginia Division of
Culture and History. It is available for $4.95 at Tamarack,
Bookland, Little Brickhouse Gift Shop, Kroger and Walmart in
Beckley, Kroger in Princeton, or by calling (304) 558-0220, ext.
153.

Visit the Division’s website at www.wvculture.org. The West
Virginia Division of Culture and History is an Equal
Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.